Hand Training

I want to start with a quote from Ross Enamit´s "Hand Training"- article

"Learn from my mistakes. Make time for hand training."

Well...a few days ago i did a sparring session with my training buddy and it went really well.
I was able to get in some nice jabs, i intercepted him nicely, i got in some really nice right hands, straight or wide. Even some nice bodyshots happened.
I don´t have to mention, he landed some quite beautiful punches and kicks too.

But due to a lack of punching-technique from my side combined with the new strength i got from my regular workouts i hurt my right thumb pretty badly.
While i´m writing this entry i got about 50% mobility in my thumb and those are painful.

So...what have i learned??

1)Adrenalin makes you forget your pain. So always train smart and listen to your body!
2)I will have to lay back for a while with stuff i love, like sandbag-, kettlebell, ring-training.
3)I have to make some more time for handtraining.

I started a while ago on the right trail with my mini-workouts that focus on hands and calves.
I´ll keep doing them.

But i have to throw in some more stuff.
-Different ways to challenge the grip(finger-pushups, knuckle-pushups, towel-pullups, pinch-grip-exercises with doors, different grips while doing my sandbag-exercises,...)
-isometric exercises for punches
-some basic punching training to get those flaws out of my technique

http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/trainingthehands.html
take a good look. this page is pure gold


What i want YOU to learn from my mistakes:

-work on your weaknesses!
-work hard!
-work smart!

NO ONE can start with 100%!! all the stuff you read, see here...take it easy, work at a steady pace, make small improvements over time.
SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE!!

i took a sparring situation, went all-out and paid the price.
What was the bill??
+strength
+conditioning
+mental capability to fight through fatique and pain
-technique training in the martial arts sector
+gave it all i got with every punch
--------
= good fight with bad outcome(aka injury)

so again: gradually build up to the highest level.
We will get there. Every day of training adds to my, to YOUR goal!

train hard, train smart, and enjoy the scenery along the way.
all the best,
harry

The one true secret of success

Well...i´m only training seriously for about 2,5 yeras now...
I´ve done a lot of BS, even in those 2,5 years,but since i´m not that stupid and stubborn as a mule, i learned a lot and still do.

And i found one concept, one core statement, one wisdom ALL succesful trainers, athletes, fighters, and all those i forgot have in common.
One mindset, one philosophy that they all have in common.

Are you ready?

Good.

Really get to know, what YOU want to achive with your training.
Train really, really hard, train smart(e.g. exercise selection). Eat right(non-processed, natural protein and fat), get enough sleep.
Repeat this for 5-10 years.

I swear, you´ll get the results you desire.
All this can be used with other things in life than training.
Give it a try and get back to me with your results in 5 years.
You´ll be amazed.

Thx to all the people who taught me this.
Thx to Ross Enamait, Zach Even-Esh, Jim Wendler, all i forget right now and all those that came before them and taught them.

Train hard,and smell the roses along the way, have a good time in life.
harry

The most beautiful thing

Why do you torture yourself like that?
What do you mean you ALWAYS train like that?
What can you possible gain from that?

Those are the questions i face when people see me training.

Well, there are several answers...
Health. Mental Strength. Physical Strength. Something i consider beauty. And much more.

But one thing i want to mention as a seperate point today.

When i read "Naked Warrior" by Pavel Tsatsouline i immediatly thought it´s not just about taking all the equipment away.

When you train with you maximal intensity, when you give all you can give, when you come to the point, when nothing in your body is left and your mind wants to stop all this...
This is the point, where we see what i think of as the "naked warrior".
In those moments, you see what you really are. You see how far you are willing to push this weak flesh wrapped around your mind, how far your mind can take you.
Those moments are what takes you to the next step. Because in those moments you learn more about yourself than in 5 years without...
Many people don´t want to see what is there or beyond. It´s scary. Because over there are all the weaknesses, fears, tears and tortures we can not endure.

Only if you step over a border, only then you know exactly where it is.
Only if you step over YOUR borders, only then you know who YOU REALLY ARE!

Since this is an open blog, i won´t go into all the details, but today i did a session with loaded conditionings, two 10min sets with a 5min break.
I pushed myself during this first 10min so far, i didn´t know i could go there.
Somewhere during the 5min break, i placed a phone-call that wasn´t done by me. It was placed by my "warrior within". I was honest in a way, my concious mind could seldomly be.
I can´t remember most of the call, the words, only the feeling is sharp in my mind.

I don´t know how else to describe this event, it was overwhelming. Maybe you get an idea.
I hope so... Because then you may now start you journey through the hedges of your conciousness, cutting, pushing aside, striving to know:

When all is taken from me, when there is nothing left but my decision to fight or flight... What am i gonna do?

"my heart, my mind, will carry my body when my limbs are too weak."

take care, train hard,
harry

The Importance of Mental Training

"I´ve trained my mind and my body will follow!"

"My heart, my mind will carry my body when my limbs are too weak!"

Almost everybody once heard a parent, a teacher, a mentor say: "whatever you are dreaming of...if you believe in it, it can come true!"
Well...and almost everybody thought: "yeah,sure..."

Today i wanna give you a short description from a scientific standpoint, why those people were actually right.
Shocked? Well, you got every right to be...

Our mind is something, we do not understand very well yet.
There are so many links in our central nervous system, our brain, we got no idea how it works, but more importantly how it forms itself through input from the outside and how it can adapt itself.
How does our conciousness work?
We know to a good part, where certain functions like hearing, seeing, smelling, emotions, rational thinking, arts, etc. are mainly(!) located but how exactly they work or even interact... NO IDEA!


Some things we know and i picked some of them which i consider important to mental training.

Before we even think of a movement, e.g. using a light-switch, areas of our brain already processed the necessary information...
Our brain analyses the information it got, how we did such a thing in the past, how we, the switch, the rest of the room are positioned in the surrounding space.
After that areas responsible for movement, planing those as well as actually performing them, are activated and your brain assesses the the situation, compares it to former situations when you used a light-switch, compares the necesarry movements, searches for known motoric patterns.
Finally we come to the concious decision and execution of the movement: during the whole movement, you are constantly assessing the situation and cross checking with known situations. Am i gonna reach the switch? Is the angle correct? When do i have to stop the movement? WHich muscle fibers of which muscle with which intensity have to be activated to get there in the right angle and with the right pressure to activate the switch but not damaging it?

Why do you think I´m telling you all this?

Because: before you actually perform a movement, any movement, you already activated all the necessary brain-regions to do it.


When i perform autohypnosis, it is a key element, to imagine as many details as possible.
Powerlifters do the same thing before their main lift. They call it psyche-up. They imagine themselves doing the lift correctly, easily and full of energy over and over...
Why?
That way, they create a reality in their head, where they already lifted the weight.
With every run through this mental lift, it becomes more and more real to more and more of their brain/conciousness.
When they finally have to perform the "real" lift, they already did it 50+ times i their head and 80% of them already knows they will do it.

The power of positive thinking.

if you got any questions, feel free to post a question or send me an email.

focus, be creative but never forget to stop and smell the roses.
harry

So...what about the ladies??

As a man you often have to explain yourself to women. Sorry for being so straight-foreward but that´s one of the things in the relationship between men and women that makes the whole thing so interesting...So no hard feelings and continue reading.

Almost every woman who watched my videos on youtube, who talked to me about my trainig concept, read my blog about it, asks me: "Well, but what about women? What would a training look like for them?"

Well... some may be shocked, suprised, interested or whatever:
"The SAME!!"

Every human being has the same needs when it comes to their muscles, bones, tendons and ligaments: strength(in different qualities like explosive,endurance,...), support, active and passive mobility.

Of course women got a different physique than men(Thank god!!), got a different hormonal status(than god again!!),...


But this only means that:
-maybe you build a solid base with different methods.
-with a different approach comes a difference in the increase of intensity(but in the long run the goal is the same: intensity).
-women don´t have the potential to develop the same amount of muscles as men(my personal opinion: thank god! ;-D )





Like i said before: my approach is to build a strong base. Being able to do a lot of things very good. Every men AND WOMAN benefits from a strong base!
The indiviadual results will vary between men and women, as well as between different individuals.
That´s what makes us one of a kind.

I want to help every person to develop this individuality, find their strong areas and make them stronger, find the weak spots and eliminate them.

Give it a try and have fun!
Harry

Short in time? Keep it mini!!

My semester at the medical university just started.
One thing stays the same: there is never enough time!

I have to attend the seminars, courses, etc; i have to study, cook, clean my apartment, keep on reading literature for my ongoing hypnosis-education and while i´m doing all this i would like to keep my social life going.
Oh yeah, and i would like to work out. :-D

So there are days when there is just not enough time for a workout with the warmup, main part and a finisher or some special core-stuff.

Sounds familiar??
Well, there are some things you can do:

-when you train, use high intensity with total body movements.
when doing this you´ll get the most bang for the buck.

-use high intensity
you´ll be done faster and your body will have more he has to adapt to.

-use high intensity!!!!
;-D

-use mini-workouts
for example, i can afford to take 10min learning breaks during the day.
instead of watching some crap on youtube, reading stuff on facebook just throw in a mini-workout.
I got this concept from "Infinite Intensity" by Ross Enamit.

You can do something like:
-5x FingerPushups + 5x Knuckle Pushup
-10x One Leg Ankle Hops per leg
-5x Towel Pullups
-5x One Leg Long/High Jump per leg
repeat 2-4 times.

I did this today for 3 rounds and it took me 10 minutes to complete(warmup with joint-mobility was included).
Just cut the rest-times to make it shorter and keep the intensity high.
I wanted something to focus on the hands and explosive leg-drive.

If you want to do something for your strength, throw in some isometrics.
E.g. do an military press in a doorway, the bent-over-row with a towel you are standing on, or if you change the body angle, a squat with the same towel position.
push hard against a wall,...
You´ll be done in 10 minutes max. and you got a quality strength- workout.

If you want to keep your conditioning up to date, just do the 100- Burpee- Challenge or as many Burpees as possible in 10 minutes.

Using such mini-workouts, you can make the most of your spare moments and avoid loosing strength, conditiong, etc. till you got more time again to incorporate longer workouts.

Have fun and, as always, questions are very welcome.

Harry

Mental Aid for Conditioning - Create a mission in your head

I created myself a szenario today.

Like i explained in an older post: szenarios help you to keep your focus elsewhere, since the intensity of conditioning- workouts can become a bit overwhelming sometimes-

Today, since i´m a medical student, i created the following:

Wanderers are injured in the mountains an radioed for help.
My job is to get there as fast as possible with light gear, provide first aid and ready them for transport.
Since i´ve to carry or at least support them, the extraction is done with a heavier weight.

Now the workout to mimic these points:

*Insert

4x
-25x swings/side 16kg kettlebell
-10x frog jumps

*ActionsAtObjective

4x
-10x DOuble Clean KB16
-10x SeeSawPress KB16
-5x tie a surgical knot

*Extraction

5x
-3x DOuble Jerk KB24
10x Double Jerk KB16

Give this one a try, it was quite nice.

As always, if you got questions i´d be happy to answer them.

Have fun,
Harry

Loaded Conditioning - Example Workout

just see the vid below.



All you need is some kind of weight and someplace to do pullups at.
If there is no room for pullups, do bent-over-rows.

If there is no room for any weight, do heavy body-weight-exercises.
If you find an excuse for those too...Well, too bad. No-one can help you.

Have fun,
Harry

Loaded Conditioning - It´s hell and you gonna love it!!

Right now i´m in my martial-arts conditioning-cycle...

That means i make more time to practise Wing Tsun with my teacher Gerhart Reichmann(EWTO).
But, to make sure, all the other qualities a fighter needs to not suffer, i designed myself a plan that not just includes the skill-work but also strength, conditioning, extra core and grip work.

How to do it beside days like today, when i spend 10+ hours at the university??

Well, like i already said, mini-workouts and a blending of strength and conditioning: LOADED CONDITIONING.

You basically take a medium to heavy load but with a conditioning frame.

For example, do heavy sandbag-shouldering for time.



Or you can use Kettlebells and do stuff like

5x Double KB FrontSquat
5x Double KB swings
for 10minutes

followed by...

5x Double KB Military Press
5x Pullup
for 10minutes

(see http://www.irontamerblog.com , http://zacheven-esh.com/blog/ , http://naturtraining.blogspot.com/ for more information.)

When training like this, you´ll develop an amazing work capacity, make sure the whole body has to work overtime and signal the body to develop the muscles he realy needs!!
Plus you do a ton of work in about 30minutes!!

Have fun,
Harry